Why Digital Marketing Fundamentals Are The New Black
What is digital marketing?
Why in-depth market research has become need of an hour?
How to understand customer’s needs before creating any products/services?
Are communication skills important to sell products & services?
How to create a personal brand & be the only one in the market?
“Never START a Business Just To Make Money; START a Business To Make a Difference”
— By Marie Forleo
If you are keen in knowing these aspects, you have landed on the right page. This article will best suit you as guidance note to put your first step in Digital Marketing World
This article has a lot more to talk about Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, Types of Marketing to promote the product/services and Personal Branding. When we come to the end of an article, your all questions & aspects will be cleared and you will surely look forward to start your career in this field which has never ending growth & lot of scope ahead
“The value of the digital marketing industry will exceed the INR 225 billion marks by 2020. By 2020, in India digital Industry will produce more than 20 lakhs job”
Learning Digital Marketing is just not the end; implementing them in generating revenue is the vital part which is must to remember if you are doing job/freelancing. Experienced who want to start with their own personal brand, understanding your customer & customers needs is very important to stand out your brand in the market.
But the problem of major marketer is that they forget to focus on customer needs and rush behind launching new products/services which might not fulfill major consumer needs or even if their product is suiting the needs of consumers, product quality is the factor which is not being taken care of. It is necessary to balance out all these factors.
Research says — “30% to 45% of new products fail to deliver any meaningful financial return”.
Before moving ahead with marketing in a deeper sense, let’s understand What is Digital Marketing & Different Channels of Digital Marketing?
To explain in a simpler language, Digital Marketing is a medium to reach & advertise your product to a larger audience
Channels through which we can reach till end consumers are email, websites, search engine, social media, mobile application etc……Sounds interesting right!
If I happen to think marketing from my perspective,
“Everything starts with customer’s needs & ends with customer’s feedback”
Marketing aspect is much wider and to be a good marketer, understanding your audience needs and on basis of that creating outline will make your way much easier.
Let's go ahead and touch base marketing concepts in a more deeper way.
How CATT Funnel works?
If you want to launch any new product/service, you must be thinking how to start and from where to start. The outline of funnel is like a guide for new marketer to set their goals and start planning the business. The concepts of the funnel is well explained by DigitalDeepak through many of his Digital marketing blogs as well as through one of his internship video. The diagram of CATT funnel will make you understand better
Select the niche which will serve the purpose of consumer needs. Then create well designed content depending on the niche you selected via blogging, vlogging, newsletter & articles. Content should be so crisp, clear & easy to understand what message you want to reach till the audience to get them connected to brand quickly.
Once the content is ready, target the right audience via various marketing channels like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, SEO to drive traffic to your platform. Word of mouth is the best channel of marketing. Here you have gained the Attention of your audience.
Now to gain Trust, keep creating new posts & related products/services which will bring new customers to platform and also helps in retaining the old customers. Ask for their responses in form of creating sales page with product link to purchase product or ads asking for response to understand how many will actually buy products/services. This is direct marketing which will stimulate consumers to take necessary actions.
Transaction is the last step of funnel where consumers perception to take action is cleared. If marketer is successful to bring his customer till the 3rd step “Trust”, it is definite that he can convert many leads to sales through natural sales method.
Is Communication Skills required to sell products/services?
Communication Skills doesn’t means that an individual should be proficient in English. It means having thorough knowledge of product is utmost important to convince consumer to buy product. This knowledge comes with an experience when you write like you explain it to others, understanding the audience & joining the conversation that is going on in people’s mind. To put your thoughts/ideas in a structured manner, start thinking in English.
“People do not buy good & services. They buy relations, stories and magic”
— By Dan Weiden
Fundamentals of Marketing
Digital is a medium through which marketing is done.The purpose of marketing is to build a brand & create value for its users. Marketing has no end, mediums to reach customers might change. Marketing is rooted in human psychology in such a way that without building brand trust, consumer is not going to spend his hard earned money; “Think Before You Buy” approach.
Marketer needs to select right category and start with a small niche and then starts expanding the category to create a strong brand. He needs to create strategies to bring the customer to the marketing funnel by creating quality content around it & delivering it to the right person at the right time which will urge them to buy products/services. He needs to use different tools and interlinked it to create an ecosystem for the campaign to run successfully. Also developing trust in people’s minds is very important which will assure them that they will get the best results from it for what they are looking out for and their time is worth the money. Perceptions of consumer keeps changing and so it is necessary for marketer to be flexible enough & updated on current trend to make alterations in their strategies.
“You DON’T Build a BUSINESS, You BUILD People And Then PEOPLE Build The Business”
— By Deb Nelson (Saved to Arbonne.com)
Marketing is understanding the concepts of business. To create a strong base; driving traffic, marketing and selling are 3 skill sets required. Basis of these fundamentals, a marketer will be able to build future proof business. Marketing cannot be outsourced completely, they can be done by hiring people for execution. If products/services start selling in the market through rigorous campaign creation strategies, a marketer can start expecting immediate ROI against the money he has invested to run campaign.
How Integrated Digital Marketing Framework works?
Integrated digital marketing works when multiple channels are combined together like Content Marketing, Email Marketing, SEO & Social Media Marketing to deliver right message to right audience.
Content is the soul of marketing and it all starts from here. If product/service is ready but if the content is not ready, how you will be able to reach the audience in market? Hence Content Marketing is placed at the center in above framework
Once the content is ready, advertise the content on different platforms. If campaign is created targeting the right audience, the reach will automatically increase and consumers will land up to your page and subscribe. They will become the part of your email list. Once he/she becomes the part of the marketing funnel, whenever any new article is published, email will be send to them as they are part of email list. This content will then be listed on search engines & search engine will start ranking content based on keyword research & back links generated. Search engine will send traffic back and helps in adding new customers to funnel. Later if content is shared on social media, people surfing on social media will be the part of funnel and if they share the post on social media, their connections might also become the part of funnel. This is how leads are generated and then it can be converted by building a trust via natural sales method
“Integrated marketing offers opportunities to break through to consumers in new markets”
— By Betsy Holden
Here you go with the example of creating a backlink:
Are you a travel freak? To make budget-friendly travel plans, click here
Marketing — Digital v/s Traditional
Digital Marketing
- Draws customer to sales funnel with relevant & useful content.
- It uses “Pull” strategy” to drive business
- It is inexpensive & easily measurable
- It is an immediate & personalized way of communication
- Creates trust and try to sell product through natural sales method
- Suitable method to launch new product in market
- A marketer can expect immediate ROI
- Mediums used: Emails, Social Media, Search Engine, Mobile Marketing
Why people say “Welcome to Digital World”, You will get answer from the below stats:
Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing.
Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic.
57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog.
78% of Internet users conduct product research online.
Traditional Marketing
- Demand customer’s attention & interrupts their workflow
- It uses “Push”strategy to drive business
- It is expensive & not easily measurable
- There is delay in communication
- Request for upfront payments
- Suitable method for product who has wide market reach
- Mediums used: TV Ads, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, Billboards
Personal Branding: MassTrust Blueprint
Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of an individual by positioning them as an authority in their industry (Source: Wikipedia)
Steps To Position Your Brand in Market
- Think what makes you different from others
- Define your goals to reach the audience
- Identify the target audience who will actually take interest in know your product features
- Start prioritizing your customer needs that you have analyzed
- Set up an account on social media and ask target audience to subscribe to your page by boosting a campaign
- Create your own website
- Start building content that will make an impact on the minds of customers
- Message Clarity
- Problem Statement
- Your Personal Experience
- Solution to Problem
- Benefits in buying the service (Call To Action)
- Start promoting your content with the help of different marketing channels
- Keep creating interactive content on your website in the form of e-books & articles which helps in building trust
- Ask your consumer to leave feedback /comment to help you get the way to reach consumer’s mindset
- Take their reviews seriously and implement it to expand your business at wider horizons.
- Be The Only 1 in Category
Personal Brand is what people say about you when you leave the room
— By Jeff Bezos, Founder, Amazon.com
Here you have created your brand position in market. Once brand position is created in market, marketing & customer acquisition cost goes down
How To Create Mass Trust?
Learn — Take knowledge of new skills through Concepts, Facts & Procedures
Work — Implement the knowledge in daily work and build your own strategies to come up with better results
Blog — Once you have an experience & better understanding, you can start writing blogs which will help you creating your own personal brand
Consult — Brand is build on trust. Hence trust routes marketer/entrepreneur to take guidance. Consult from work experience & learning fundamentals
Mentor — Share your knowledge with others in form of training courses,e-books, internship program which helps in up scaling the understanding to whole new level
Start Up — Start with your own product/services depending on your own skill, market research and solution to the problem statement of consumers
Oprah Winfrey is one of the best example when it comes to personal branding. She is known as “America’s Ultimate Brand”.
She is highly attuned to her audience and knows exactly what content they will love.
Oprah’s ability to emotionally connect with her guests and her audience is her underlying skill at the source of every single one of her successes.
Now that we have come to the end of an article, lets recap on what we have learned. We have put limelight on importance of law of marketing. If you want to create your own identity in market, how to select a niche & how to gain trust of the audience to be the only in category. Emphasized on communication skills to transfer the thought process to sell the products. Components of integrated marketing that helps in bringing leads to the marketing funnel and convert it to sales. A detailed framework designed by DigitalDeepak to evolve personal brand in market. How traditional marketing helps in selling the generic product & how digital marketing helps in selling the product by generating immediate ROI.
Please leave a comment if you find this article relevant. Leave your feedback/suggestions which will help in improving the user experience!
My first ever article is all set to publish. It was a very challenging experience for me. I just followed the footstep of my mentor, he always says “Write Like You Talk” and I did exactly the same. This article is part of DigitalDeepak Internship Program — Week 2. If you wish to be the part of Digital Marketing Journey with Deepak Kanakaraju (aka Digital Deepak), click on link https://deepak.me/internapply